Meet David Fivecoat

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome back to Adrienne Barker Speaks. Zero prep needed, like I don't do any prep, but I did peek at Dave, Mr. Five Coat, David Five Coat, his leadership, what he has done for a living, who he is, and I am blown away. And I look forward to having conversation about the leadership and what we all need to learn about it. So welcome, David Five Coat. What a name too, by the way. So tell me a little bit about your name, but share who you are.

Yeah, well, well, thank you for having me on your podcast, and, and hello to all your audience. It's the first time on, so I'm excited to get to know you and your, and your group a little bit more. I was born and raised in Ohio, and the last name is supposedly German. It was Finnfrock or Fumfrock, and literally translated to Five Coat around Pennsylvania in 1800. There were, there were three brothers. Two brothers changed it to Five Coat, and one brother kept it as Finnfrock. And my part of the family made it as far west as Ohio. And then that's where, that's where I grew up. But there's some— there's about 200 of us across the U.S. There's some clusters in Indiana and Florida and Ohio.

Oh, I love that. I knew there had to be some history with a name like that. It's amazing. And share with us your incredible bio, because that is amazing.

Yeah. So thanks. So as a kid, I grew up in, in Delaware, Ohio. It's about 20 minutes north of Columbus. And I love to read history. and especially military history. And I think I, I checked out every single book on World War II, uh, in the Delaware County Public Library. And when it came to apply to colleges, uh, it was just a natural fit to apply, uh, to West Point. And I got accepted. I decided to go, uh, and that started my journey, uh, in the Army. I was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the infantry and led organizations from 30 people all the way up to several thousand people. Along the way, during my Army journey of 24 years, I did a trip to Kosovo, a trip to Bosnia, 3 trips to Iraq, and a trip to Afghanistan. All told, about 41, 41 months in combat. And then my final job in the Army was I led the Army's Airborne School and Ranger School. And we trained about 25,000 students a year between both of those schools. We taught folks how to jump out of planes in the Airborne School. And then we taught people how to be better leaders and small unit tacticians in, in the Ranger School. Both were— my Army experience was great. It was a phenomenal experience. Made some incredible friends that I cherish till today, but decided in 2017 that it was time to move on. I left the Army, and we're taught that we don't say retired from the Army, we say we transitioned from the Army. So, I transitioned from the Army, and I joined another company that did leadership development for 3 years. Then COVID hit. I don't know what you did during— oh, well, I know what you did during COVID Adrian. You stood up a podcast. My COVID project was I stood up my company, and I got into executive coaching, and I also wrote a book. So during COVID in July of 2021, I published a book called Grow Your Grit. And I still do talks on, on that book today. It's still up on Amazon. So if your folks are interested, they can go take a look at it. And now I still do the executive coaching. I still do talks on, on grit. But the big thing that I do now is I take corporate groups to battlefields. and we use the history as a series of case studies, uh, to talk about how to, uh, lead better under uncertainty, uh, manage chaos, uh, make better decisions and communicate, uh, better. Uh, I just, I'm a little tired because I just flew in, uh, last night from Gettysburg, uh, where I was with a phenomenal group, uh, from the, from the Navy, uh, uh, group of executives from the Navy, and we did 3 days on the battlefield. It was the coldest time I've ever been on the Gettysburg battlefield. It actually snowed on us when we were on Oak Hill. That had never happened before, and I've been to Gettysburg probably 30 to 40 times, so that was a first.

No spring for you. So, okay, so this is so interesting. So first, when were you in Afghanistan?

So I deployed. So I was leading a battalion, a battalion of about 700 people. We were in Paktika Province and then Ghazni Province in 2010 and 2011.

Interesting. So I am a mother, my, I'm a mother. My son Alex was actually infantry in Afghanistan at that time. Alex Coleman, he had— do you remember the story of Derek Miller?

Terry Miller.

Derek Miller, who, um, they said he had killed an Afghan man during a time like a combat, and he served time in jail until his mother really worked hard for, I think, about 9 years to get him out. Really interesting story. But Alex— but the one thing that I could know about Alex is his leadership. And so I think that's so interesting. So I've had a few other, um, you know, war heroes, or the best to say it, those have served in the military and, and how that translates to leadership. But you're doing something so unique. So I have been to Gettysburg. I was born and raised in Connecticut, so, um, that would be wrong if I didn't go, right? And, and took my children, because I think that all children should really go up and visit that area and understand Gettysburg. But are you— so you're really bringing— like, is this the same part of Gettysburg that I would have visited, or is it a different section of Gettysburg where you do the, uh the program, which I want to learn more about.

Well, I, I would, I would suspect, uh, that we saw more of Gettysburg than the typical, uh, tourist does. The typical tourist goes, uh, does the visitor center, watches the movie, and then maybe goes out and checks out one or two places. Uh, we spent, uh, on Tuesday from about 8:30 in the morning to about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, visiting multiple sites which were important places that the North and South fought on July 1st and July 2nd. And then yesterday morning, we got up and we took the group, uh, to the Virginia Monument, or the Lee statue, and we walked through the literal route that Pickett's Charge took. So we walked the entire area from the woods on, uh, Seminary Ridge all the way up to the angle, uh, on Cemetery Ridge, which is the exact, uh, route that Pickett's guys, uh, followed. So incredibly powerful. And then we went to the cemetery, uh, and we always wrap up at the cemetery. Uh, we have the group, uh, read sentences from, uh, the Gettysburg Address, uh, which is incredibly powerful. It's a, it's a, it's an amazing way You know, you're standing at the Gettysburg Cemetery where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address in November of 1863, and you have a group of Americans saying different pieces of that 272-word, uh, speech. Uh, it, it's a, you know, you can't help but feel proud to be an American, uh, doing that.

We need more of that. What's the goal? So they're coming in, they're already serving in our, in our, the Navy.

Well, this, this happened to be a group of both civilians that support the Navy and a couple of active duty Navy folks. Most of my groups are not associated with the government. They're corporate groups. I have a health care group that's going to Normandy with me in the fall. I've got a group of manufacturing companies that is also going to Normandy in the fall. I've got a water well drilling company that's going to a place in Texas with me. So it runs the gamut. It is really the group that we're looking for is a group of leaders that want to get better at leadership. And for whatever reason, these Battlefield programs are sticky. I had a guy, Benny, that came last year that had done a program with me in 2018. And said, "Hey, you know, this is the only thing that we've referenced as far as leadership training over the last 7 years," because it was 2025 last year. "And I wanted to bring my new team so we had that same sort of common language around leadership and some different ideas that you guys talk about on the battlefield." So, that's the kind of impact that these programs have. They are, you know, for the corporate folks out there that are listening, it is a commitment of time. You know, it's, it does cost a little bit of money to do. But the leadership, the return on the investment is worth it. It's much better than sitting in a classroom and looking at PowerPoint slides and talking about leadership. You're actually standing on the ground where folks had to make a decision You're seeing exactly what John Buford or George Meade or Jeb Stuart or any of the other characters that are there at the battlefield are seeing. And you have to think about how they made decisions and then how you can apply a leadership lesson that we talk about right there on the ground to what you're doing in your company.

I'm going to take this like crazy guess that you probably like the number 5. And so with that thought, could you give me like, what are the 5 things that you would say? What are they going to be the 5 takeaways or you're talking to a corporate group, and they're like, "I want to do this." OK, what is those 5 key takeaways?

So one of the things that we teach is, it's a, there's a couple of different military leadership tools that we teach. One of the big ones is this idea of leader's intent. And the idea of leader's intent, it combines 3 things into a nice little package that's memorable for your team to sort of get an idea of what direction you're going to. The first end is a purpose statement, which is a "Why?" Then there's key tasks, and then there's an end state, or what does success look like in the future? That's one of the big takeaways that the group has. And then we tailor the rest of it to whatever the group says their biggest leadership need is. One of the things that we also teach at the end of the day is something called the After Action Review. Which is yet again another Army process on how to capture lessons learned from both good and bad events that a company or a military organization might go through. And then we make it— one of the things that we do a lot of is we make the clients actually apply it. So they, they aren't just listening and thinking about it. They have to take the next step and actually do it. So We run an after-action review at the end of the day, and the leaders have to talk about what they learned and also what they would do the same and differently the next time they came to one of these battlefield leadership programs. So it's— both of those are powerful tools. That's only two. They're going to have to come to Gettysburg to get the other three. We don't want to give it all away here.

Uh, I want to go, I want to go look, look at your website, but before we do, I want to look at the book. So let's go look at this book. Buy the book. I want to make sure I grab it. All right, let me make sure that everyone could see it. Okay, so I've got the book right here. No, I don't. I want to share this tab instead. All right, look at this. Wow. Grow Your Grit: Overcome Obstacles, Thrive, and Accomplish Your Goals. Okay, I'm going to add it to my cart. I'm going to send this to my son. So I've got it in my cart and I will finish it when I am complete with the, um, with the interview. So thank you, I'm excited about that. All right, so I like to look at websites.

What unit was Alex in?

What unit was Alex in? I— he, um, Army National Guard Infantry, but I don't remember the group or the battalion.

Okay.

I know that he had a lot of Purple Hearts, unfortunately. Um, but Alex came out much stronger too, and he came out is a real leader. He, he didn't share a lot of, um, like what was taking place, um, with, with me. I'm sure he did with his brothers, uh, but he knows how, you know, this, you know, it's, it's, it was, it was a difficult time as a mother. And so when I hear about any— and it was never about Alex, it was always about all the soldiers, right? Like, it was, it was a time of life that wasn't just, I have a son. It was like We all have a son. There's someone in someone's family. And I'm so proud of him. He's my, he's my hero. But I just really understand that what that looks like as far as leadership goes. What are some of the challenges that you see with leaders?

Well, one of the things that's going on right now is folks talk a lot about how chaotic things are, whether they're in a government organization or in a commercial or corporate organization. Lots of change, whether it's the tariffs, new laws, new directions inside with the folks in the Navy. You know, they can't hire folks right now, so they're having to do more with less people. And so just lots of change and lots of chaos right now, which is making it challenging for leaders out there, one, to be able to talk to their people, because they don't know what direction the organization is going. And so that's, that's one of the big challenges that I'm seeing out there right now.

It's interesting, after 9/11, I did write an article about You know, How to Sell During Times of Sorrow. And I just republished it because it is something that a lot of leaders don't know how to handle it. So I'm glad that they have the opportunity. So are you, are you the only one that's doing this leadership experience on the battlefield?

No, there's about, I would say, every time I think I've got a good handle on all the competition, there's somebody else that I find. So there's, there's about 10 to 12 companies across the U.S. that are, that are doing this. I offer about 15 locations in the U.S. and about another 5 in Europe for folks that would like to bring their team to any of those different battlefields or places. I do have a couple that aren't battlefields that if you're interested, it uses the same methodology of the— these are all built upon the military's idea of this thing called a staff ride. The staff ride was originally developed by the Prussian Army. As a way to learn from the Napoleonic battles and try to emulate what Napoleon did as they tried to improve the Prussian military. It was eventually adopted by the U.S. Army in the 1920s and continues to be used today. The Army uses it to, to look at military decisions and military stuff, but we've modified it so corporate groups can look at it for the leadership side or the communication side or decision-making. not the, the military. But I do offer a couple that aren't, uh, military related. Uh, there's the Moonshot, uh, program, which is leadership lessons from the Apollo program. Uh, that one can be done at a whole lot of places. The, the arrow points to Hutchinson, Kansas, because Hutchinson, Kansas, uh, the space, uh, center there has the, the Apollo 13 capsule, uh, from, from the movie. Uh, not It has the real one, but it's, it's, it's the one that the movie was made about. I also have one called Atomic Leadership, which is lessons from the Manhattan Project. That one can be done a bunch of different places, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Los Alamos, New Mexico, to Hanford, Washington, or Oak Ridge, Tennessee. All those played an important role in the the Manhattan Project. Two others that aren't military related. Also, Transcontinental Railroad in Utah, just north of Salt Lake City, where the Transcontinental Railroad came together in 1869. Great story about a public-private partnership and some of the leadership challenges there. And then this Think Differently, which is based on the creation of Apple Computer and some ideas It's at a museum in, just outside of Silicon Valley.

Okay, this is so incredible. All right, so going back to the battlefield then, what is the most popular?

So the most popular is Gettysburg. You know, Gettysburg is the largest battle on the North American continent, almost 165,000 troops on both sides. It's kind of the one that has name recognition if you aren't a history buff. The second one that I get a lot of inquiries about, but it is, it is a little bit more expensive because you got to pay for the flights over and back, is Normandy. You know, those two are the most popular, and then some of the others become popular depending on what companies are close by. You know, if you're an Atlanta-based company, it's easy to get to Chattanooga. It's only 2 hours up the road. And so that kind of works out.

Amazing! All right, I want to go through your site for a minute. This is, this is so incredible. Oh, there's a transcontinent— oh, OK, sorry. Oh, Golden Spike: Leadership Lessons from the Building of the Transcontinental Railroad. Wow! Wow! So you're getting the history lesson, Plus the leadership lesson.

Correct.

Oh, this one explores how leaders overcame daunting obstacles. I love this. I love your whole idea of you're doing this. Oh my gosh, this is incredible. Do you have any videos?

I do not. That's one of the things. So I have a woman, Blair, who's part of the TFCG team, and she's been on me to film some videos on the battlefield. So hopefully, we get that done this year. So check back in a couple of months, and we'll hopefully have some, some videos on the battlefield.

Actually, that brings me to a point. How do you follow up on the leaders that you have that have gone through the battlefield, for a better lack of word, the program?

So a couple of things that we try to do. So first off, we try to do About 30 days before they come to the battlefield, we do a virtual kickoff meeting with the group where we talk through the logistics. We assign some pre-work because we want folks to have read or watched a movie that deals with some of the history. So when they're actually getting on the ground, we don't have to spend as much time on the history and we can focus in on the leadership. Side of things. And so we have that pre-call, and then we have the folks on the battlefield. And then we try to do a post-call about 45 days afterwards to try to see, because one of the last things that the group has to do is they have to commit in front of their peers to using one of the leadership tools when they go back to work. And so it's not just, "Hey, you get to go on this cool tour and talk about history," and some folks like that. But We try to make them actually apply what they, they learned. And so like yesterday, folks were saying, "Hey, we're going to use leader's intent. Hey, we're going to use this communications tool called the Backbrief. We're going to try to do this." And so they all committed in front of their peers. And so in 30 to 45 days, we'll have a check-in with them and see how they're doing.

Oh, I love that! Are you making the leaders— is there any part of the time where they have to challenge yourselves, like climb a telephone pole, swing across something, cry for 'Oh, that was me doing that when I had to do that.' What is— is there anything like that that you're doing where there's that kind of like inner challenge?

No, we don't do anything like that. There's a few things. One of our programs is up at Currie Mountain. I don't know if you— did you watch the Band of Brothers miniseries on HBO? Well, do you remember when they're training in Georgia? Well, that is Currahee Mountain. And so we take a group up there and they have to hike. They don't have to run the 3 miles up and 3 miles down Currahee Mountain, just like the guys did in the Band of Brothers, which is Dick Winters. That is— you would think that 6-mile, a 6-mile hike would not be that stressful, but I've taken multiple groups there and somebody always is physically challenged and mentally challenged to complete that, uh, that 6-mile hike. Uh, so, uh, that is the only one that has really a physical component to it. Uh, for the Normandy programs, I do offer— people can join me for physical fitness in the morning if they want. Uh, I've had 5 or 6 takers each, each time, and so, uh, I'm happy that folks show up and we do a few push-ups and sit-ups and we go for a run. So it, but there is that aspect of, you know, surviving some sort of challenge sort of baked into the, to the program. One of the other things that we try to do also is we try to use 2 facilitators. And typically, 1 facilitator will focus in on the history and tell the history story. And so at each of these spots that we take the group to, it is think about it as a 45-minute mini case study, where the historian will talk about the history for about 15 minutes, the leadership person will talk about the leadership idea, and then we'll try to cause a discussion in the group about how to apply that leadership idea for about 15 minutes. And so, and then we'll put them back on the bus, and we'll go someplace else and talk through the history, talk through the leadership, And then how do they apply it? So that works really, really well with the back and forth with two instructors.

Oh, I love it. I love it. I just want to be clear, actually, I was a Cub Master, not a Den Leader. I was a Cub Master. I did 3 miles up and 3 miles down.

I was a Cub Scout as well. I eventually went on and got my Eagle Scout.

Oh, see, but I always think the same thing. Like, like, if you, if you have an opportunity to hire an Eagle Scout, you would be silly if you didn't. And if you have an opportunity to hire someone that has served for us, you're pretty much guaranteed a great leader and a listener. And I want to go— so I actually created a program for young professionals in the workforce because there are so many leaders that need training because they don't really understand how to work with the young professionals. I have a feeling you're working with very high-level leaders, yet they still need a course like this. And so can you just kind of share what your ideal client is, what that looks like? So if anyone is listening, you know, my 2 listeners, if they would be able to, they would say, oh, you know what, this is for my company. Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, you're correct that it tends to be higher-level leaders in an organization that will come to one of these things. But we encourage companies, especially companies that we get into, and they like this idea, to cascade it down the organization. Because the top-level folks, it doesn't have nearly as long an impact as if you can get in and get a group of leaders that have been in the company 5 or 10 years, rather than 20, because then they can continue to use this stuff and pass it on to the next group of leaders that are working right underneath them. So we'll take all, all kinds. We have a couple programs that are designed for what we call strategic leaders, which are, you know, C-suite-level folks that are thinking about the, you know, the direction of the organization. But, you know, Gettysburg can be tailored down to a frontline leader that has, you know, is in charge of 2 people or 3 people. And so we can, we can tailor it to whomever we get.

Oh, I love it. I love it. I want to just, I want to go back to your website, make sure I'm not missing anything. I still got my book in my cart. All right. So I love it. Handsome picture of you. This is more information about Mr. David Fivecoat. Amazing. Love, love, love these shows.

We're going to get, you know, if you, once you send me the link to your podcast, you get up on the podcast list. And you get your picture on the, on the podcast.

I love it. It's funny that you— so wait, did you live in Ohio at any point?

I did, from, from, from birth to age 18.

That would be really weird if you lived in Columbus, Ohio.

Oh, well, so I grew up just north of Columbus, Ohio. So I'm— the running joke is that I need to move to Columbus, Mississippi next, or—

That is so funny. Hogan. So just tell, tell me about this. Hogan is a registered trademark of Hogan Assessment Systems, Inc.

So, so one of the things I got certified on as part of my executive coaching is the Hogan Assessment. Have you taken the Myers-Briggs or StrengthsFinder or anything like that?

Yes, yes.

So the Hogan Assessment is based on the same sciences behind Myers-Briggs or StrengthsFinder or, and/or DiSC or or any of that. But Hogan says that they are the ultimate personality trait tool for business. Because what they try to do is they do their tests, and then they go out and survey the person that took the test's boss and peers and direct reports and make sure that if you answer the question number 43 with an A, That's how you actually operate in the workforce. And because of that, Hogan says, "Hey, we will defend the results of Hogan in court, and you can use this for both promotion and hiring purposes." So I like to use it with a, with typically a C-suite, so, or a leadership team. And you can get 10 folks together, and they all take the Hogan. And then I give them an individual 1-hour debrief on their Hogan. So they get an hour of somebody going over their strengths and gaps as, as a, from the personality side. And then Hogan does a neat thing where they combine the group into a group Hogan, and you can give them tendencies as a group. Like, hey, you guys have a whole bunch of introverts. How are you making sure that everybody gets together and, and likes to go face-to-face? Because you all will default to going back to your cubicle or office and emailing each other rather than having a meeting and talking this out face-to-face. Or how do you bring the group together intentionally because you guys default this way? Or you're all a bunch of engineers and you all approach a problem one way. How do you make sure that you're looking at it from the other side? And so those are some neat tendencies. And the companies that I've done that, just did a company north of Atlanta in late January, early February. And they found it incredibly helpful. And they thought, hey, you know, we need to look, you know, next hire that we're going to bring in, we might need to look for a slightly different personality construct to complement what we currently have, because we've hired a whole bunch of people that are very similar. Personality-wise. So neat tool. And if any, if any of your listeners are out there, would love to come into your company and help you. It really helps with self-assessment as a start point, and then group assessment, so you understand your tendencies as a group on, on how you act. It's a great tool, great tool for insight.

You know, I grew up in the promotional products industry, logo merchandise, and there's so many large businesses, large companies, and industry, and I'm still very active in the industry, that, you know, I wonder if they understand if they just worked with their leadership, they would have more profit, they would have better quality merchandise, they would have, you know, better processes, like the whole thing. And, you know, and especially during mergers and acquisitions, where I find like, that seems to be the problem in the industry where there's so many things that fail. But could you do like a PSA on why it is so important to have your people, you know, I get people, you know, profit over people, people over profit. But why is it that you've got to work with your people in order to get that profit?

Well, so the challenge with any leadership training, whether the group is going to come see TFCG or go somewhere else, is it's a struggle to show the return on the investment. Uh, it does not translate right to the bottom line as well as other things do. You know, you do sales training with your salespeople, and I suspect you're going to see a correlation that you have an increase in sales. Where you do some leadership training, one, the, what the, the, the part that is, there are facts and stats that support it, you do have decreased turnover anytime you do leadership training with your team because your team feels like you are investing in them for the future. And so that's— but it's so hard to show that because how can you show that Sarah, who came through the leadership training last year, didn't leave to go to another company because she had that leadership training and thought that the company was investing in her? And oh, by the way, things got a little bit easier, a little bit better, because they were communicating better, they had a common language to talk through when they, when they encountered some leadership challenges. Those things are really tough to quantify when you're looking at a P&L. But I'm a huge believer that the investment in, in your team and in your leaders will continue to compound throughout the throughout the company. And every company should be doing this.

And it's not just for— I mean, like, I've always— I used to drive my parents crazy. But, you know, you're also growing them for their future, right? So I've done 5 leadership programs through chambers, nothing fancy like you. But there's a man named Dr. Pepper who ran simulations, which was really cool. And we got to learn a lot. But, but the thought is, is that is how important it is to just grow people and that they need it. So I think it's amazing what you're doing. Is there anything I didn't ask you that I should have asked you that you would like me to ask you?

No, we covered, we covered a lot. You asked some really good questions that, uh, most podcasters don't ask me, so, uh, I appreciate it.

I appreciate that because I actually don't, um, I, I had no idea who you were, so in all honesty, but I will say no prep. No prep, but I wanted to share with you that I did work during COVID and you wouldn't believe what I did. I was a census worker. I knocked on doors.

Oh wow, okay.

I— because I— when someone knocks on my door, I scream, I freak out, I get so nervous. So I thought, what if— how could I ever run for a political, you know, can't— not that I want to, but I was thinking to myself, what is a fear that I have? What would be cool to overcome? And it was knocking on someone else's door. I didn't think that, like, you know, having a gun pointed at me— I didn't think having, like, a dog that scared me because it was coming— I think it wasn't easy for me. I should have practiced how to jump on a car because I actually didn't know how to do it in the time of scariness. But anyway, so I actually— I did keep myself busy, but I think that was one of the most unique things I did. And I finished my whole season. I did not— because I don't quit on anything. So, but I'm loving what you do. I'm gonna order the book immediately. Like when we're done, I love it. I wanna get that for my son. I have really enjoyed my time with you and I really enjoyed learning from you and I love, love, love what you're doing. And I will share, I'm going to be your stalker. So I'm gonna like follow you on every channel. You're on LinkedIn, right?

I am on LinkedIn, yes.

Oh yes, I'll be following you on LinkedIn. I'm gonna be, you're gonna be like, this woman shares, I'm a sharer. So I'll be sharing all your posts and I would be so thrilled if I could get you some business. But you are amazing. Thank you for all you've done for us and for fighting for our freedom. And I know it's a big sacrifice. And thank you to your family, uh, because I, I know what that means too. And, uh, thank you. And I just wish you a great, great rest of the day. And I'll be in touch to let you know when this will be airing. And, uh, we are live though, so people can watch the live. And, uh, thank you, David.

All right, thank you.

Is number 5 your favorite?

Of course, of course.

I love it. Thank you. Have a great rest of the day.

Okay, bye.

Thank you. That was